A SUMMER IN A CAÑON & POLLY OLIVER'S PROBLEM (Illustrated). Kate Douglas Wiggin
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Название: A SUMMER IN A CAÑON & POLLY OLIVER'S PROBLEM (Illustrated)
Автор: Kate Douglas Wiggin
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 9788075832665
isbn:
‘Not I,’ laughed Geoff, as he dropped a brotherly kiss on Bell’s pale cheek. ‘But I’ve no idea of letting you go alone; you’re tired to death, and you’ll miss the path. I wish I could carry you both.’
‘Tired—afraid!’ cried Bell, with a ringing laugh, while Dicky woke with a stare, and nestled on Geoffrey’s shoulder as if nothing had happened. ‘Why, now that this weight is lifted off my heart, I could see a path in an untravelled forest! Good-bye, you dear, darling, cruel boy! I must run, for every moment is precious to mamma.’ And with one strangling hug, which made Dicky’s ribs crack, she dashed off.
Oh how joyously, how sweetly and tunefully, the furious blast of the old cracked dinner-horn fell on the anxious ears in that cañon. It seemed clearer and more musical than a chime of silver bells.
In a trice the wandering couples had gathered jubilantly round the camp-fire, all embracing Bell, who was the heroine of the hour—entirely by chance, and not though superior vision or courage, as she confessed.
It was hardly fifteen minutes when Geoff strode into the ring with his sorry-looking burden, which he laid immediately in Aunt Truth’s lap.
‘Oh my darling!’ she cried, embracing him fondly. ‘To think you are really not dead, after all!’
‘No, he is about as alive as any chap I ever saw.’ And while the happy parents caressed their restored darling, Geoff gathered the girls and boys around the dinner-table, and repeated some of Dicky’s remarks on the homeward trip.
It seems that he considered himself the injured party, and with great ingenuity laid all the blame of the mishap on his elders.
‘Nobuddy takes care of me, anyhow,’ he grumbled. ‘If my papa wasn’t a mean fing I’d orter to have a black nurse with a white cap and apurn, like Billy Thomas, ’n’ then I couldn’t git losted so offul easy. An’ you all never cared a cent about it either, or you’d a founded me quicker ’n this—’n’ I’ve been hungry fur nineteen hours, ’n’ I guess I’ve been gone till December, by the feelin’, but you was too lazy to found me ’f I freezed to def—’n’ there ain’t but one singul boy of me round the whole camp, ’n’ ’t would serveded you right if I had got losted for ever; then I bet you wouldn’t had much fun Fourth of July ’thout my two bits ’n’ my fire-crackers!’
It was an hour or two before peace and quiet were restored to the camp. The long-delayed dinner had to be eaten; and to Hop Yet’s calm delight, it was a very bad one. Dicky’s small wounds were dressed with sweet oil, and after being fed and bathed he was tucked lovingly into bed, with a hundred kisses or more from the whole party.
A little rest and attention had entirely restored his good-humour; and when Dr. Paul went into the tent to see that all was safe for the night, he found him sitting up in bed with a gleeful countenance, prattling like a little angel.
‘We had an offul funny time ’bout my gittin’ losted, didn’t we, mamma?’ chuckled he, with his gurgling little laugh. ‘Next time I’m goin’ to get losted in annover bran’-new place where no-bud-dy can find me! I fink it was the nicest time ’cept Fourth of July, don’t you, mamma?’ And he patted his mother’s cheek and imprinted an oily kiss thereon.
‘Truth,’ said the Doctor, with mild severity, ‘I know you don’t believe in applying the slipper, but I do think we should arrange some plan for giving that child an idea of the solemnity of life. So far as I can judge, he looks at it as one prolonged picnic.’
‘My sentiments exactly!’ cried Bell, energetically. ‘I can’t stand many more of these trying scenes; I am worn to a “shadder.”’
Dicky tucked his head under his mother’s arm, with a sigh of relief that there was one person, at least, whose sentiments were always favourable and always to be relied upon.
‘I love you the best of anybuddy, mamma,’ whispered he, and fell asleep.
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